A wonderful surprise

Today something lovely happened. I thought it was so nice I wonder what I have done to deserve it. Today I received a package in the mail sent to me by my mother. And I couldn't believe what was inside.

3 x Dior Addict Lipsticks in 561 Baby Rose, 753 Fashion, and 864 Couture

1 x Laura Mercier Matte Eyeshadow Colour in Coffee Ground

1 x Laura Mercier Eye Basics in Wheat

2 x Laura Mercier Satinee Creme Eye Colour in Cocoa Velour and Rum Satin

1 x Laura Mercier Brow Definer in Warm

The thing about my family is that I almost never see them. My mother lives in Cyprus, my sister in Denmark, and my father moves back and forth between Sweden and Indonesia. I miss them a lot and seeing this kind of thing from my family made me really happy. I've never had anything from Laura Mercier but I know it's a very nice and expensive brand and obviously so is Dior. And the other thing that I think is so sweet is that all the colours are exactly what I use and my momma knows that so she chose them thoughtfully. I don't mean to brag and say oooooh look at all these expensive things I have, I would never spend this much money on my self but it kinda made my heart warm very much because I love makeup and I couldn't have picked a better selection for myself so I appreciate it more in a personal way than a materialistic way. So thank you family, it means the world.

Work Face

I finally have a solid and speedy work makeup routine! I've been experimenting quite a lot because I like to wear a light smokey eye to work, and I want my makeup to be quick and easy to apply as well as long lasting. I also don't want to have to fumble around too much with too many different makeup items/brushes, and just keep to the main essentials. So here is the kit:

Step 1: Apply Milk of Magnesia

Milk of Magnesia?!! Damn straight. I've been using this as my primer for about a month now and I can't believe how effective it is. My skin gets oily throughout the day and my makeup just ends up melting off, but the MoM keeps me matte throughout the day and my makeup lasts so much longer. I have no need to touch up at all. I apply it to my T-zone, cheeks and chin before I put on my makeup and I'm such a fan now. It may sound strange but I love it. And it has no adverse effects on my skin whatsoever, if anything, my skin has never been better. It was actually my mom who told me about MoM (ha!). She told me it's great to use as a deoderant. At first I thought damn you crazy! But then I tried it and it just kept my armpits dry. Since MoM doesn't have a smell I will use a fragranced deoderant too but by using the MoM first it's like your pits are a guaranteed sweat-free zone. Good stuff.

Step 2: Foundation

I'll apply my foundation with my fingers, I'll only take about a minute blending it around as I don't use much foundation anymore and only apply a thin layer all over.

Step 3: Concealer

I'll apply my garnier eye roll-on onto my clean ring finger and pat all around my eyes. I also use this as a concealer on pimples or uneven skin on my face to reduce the amount of items in my makeup bag + to save time.

Step 4: Eyebrows

I like to use Rimmel eye brow pencils because they are not too soft and not too stiff. I fill my eye brows in with fast stroke movements (like I'm drawing hairs) and if needed I'll soften with a brush.

Step 5: Bronzer

I just use a blusher brush to apply bronzer onto my cheek bones, temples and top of my forehead for some glow.

Step 6: Eye Primer

I use Gosh's stick eye shadow primer all around my eye and also on my waterline.

Step 7: Eyeliner

I recently bought Maybellines black gel liner and it definitely does NOT last 24 hours on my eyes but it's probably the most effective thing I own right now in terms of staying power. I apply this on my lower and upper water line and also around the eyes closely following the lash line and finish with a little outward flick. I do this rather quickly and don't care about mess as I blend it next.

Step 8: Eyeshadow

To save space and time I use my bronzer as eyeshadow all over my lid and under my lower lashline. I don't have to be too careful with this as the shade isn't too far off from my skin colour so its very easy to blend. Then I'll use my dark brown Max factor dip in eyeshadow as it's very fast too apply, I'll put this all around my eye close to my upper and lower lash line. Then I'll take my eye shadow brush and blend all this together so it kind of becomes a smokey gradient from the eyeliner to the dark brown eyeshadow to the goldy bronze. Right after I've blended my eyeshadow I'll run the brush down the sides of my nose for some speedy contouring and the excess shadow on the brush is always enough.

Step 9: Mascara

I start with a couple of coats of my favourite Diorshow primer then I'll use any black lasting/water proof mascara (currently using 17 Photo Flawless in Copper Black). Depending on how much time I have sometimes I'll just do one coat of each.

Step 10: Blush

I bought a pink cream blush specifically for work since I can just apply it with my fingers so it's a lot quicker.

Step 11: Lips

I'll usually apply a little bit of lipstain on when I'm on the bus but sometimes I'll skip this and leave my lips natural.

  

That is the finished look. This will usually take me around 15-20 minutes and that's while watching tv, having my morning coffee and doing my makeup in a compact mirror. I'm forced to do my makeup like this because I live with students so I have to go downstairs to the living room to get ready to avoid waking people up. It makes life so much slower! If I had a proper mirror and space to do my makeup this would probably take 10 minutes. And once it's done I don't do any touch ups except for maybe my cheeks or eyeliner on my waterline. Do you have a work/school makeup routine, and how long does it take you?

Thanks for reading ;)

My skincare routine

Wow this is like my second post this month, I hate not having enough spare time. But on a happier note, the blog giveaway will be ending soon! Yaaay! Thanks again to everyone who has taken part, I feel bad for the people who have started following me when I'm not even contributing any content on my blog at the moment. But it's just been a hectic time for me. ANYWAY. So yes at the end of this month I am getting my first pay check which is so awesome. So I'll finally be picking a winner and dispatching the prices. 

Today I wanted to do a blog post about my skin care routine. I don't stick to this religiously, some days I might fall asleep with my makeup (although very rarely) and sometimes I'll just use a face wipe if I'm too tired. But since I started using a certain few products my skin has just been so much better off. About 2 years ago I started to get acne all over my face, mainly on my cheeks. And I don't mean teenage acne, I'd already grown out of that and my skin was pretty clear, then all of a sudden this new sort of acne popped up and my skin was just all bumpy looking. I had these white heads just appearing everywhere and while they weren't the usual red pimples, they were still horrible and there were so many of them. I'd spend ages trying to squeeze the stuff out (ew) and I tried so many different products, and thank god I finally found an awesome skin routine and my skin is now the best it has ever been. For the first time in my life I feel great just wearing tinted moisturizer, in fact I'm hardly wearing much foundation anymore! So onto the routine.

Morning: 

I don't really do much in the morning as I'm always in a rush.

 

 I'll usually just quickly wash my face with Dior Gentle Foaming Cleanser. I really like this cleanser because it's very mild, it doesn't even sting my eyes. But obviously dior is quite expensive and there are lots of cheap alternatives that would do the same job, it's not an amazing product or anything, it's just a regular mild face wash and it does the job, nothing more, nothing less.

 

 Next since I'm in a rush I will use a spray on toner just before moving on to makeup. Currently I'm using Dermalogica Clean Start All Over Clear toner. I LOVE the fact that this is in a spray bottle and I'd urge anyone to keep some of their favourite toner in a spray bottle. In the morning when I'm hurrying and still half asleep it's so refreshing to have a spritz of refreshing toner right in the face! Even when this product finishes I'm gonna clean out the bottle and keep using it for toners.

Evening:

3 Words: HOT CLOTH CLEANSERS. I mean these things are a godsend, my pores have shrunk to pretty much invisible by using this stuff. There are a few different brands e.g. Liz Earle, No. 7, Soap and Glory, Sanctuary, and I think even superdrug have a real bargain version out now as well. The thing that really makes this product is the muslin cloth and I have to say I think the Liz Earle cloth is the best. But as for the actual cleanser, I'm not fussed, they all work for me. I always shower in the evenings since I already have to get up for work at 6, so I usually do my cleanse in the shower. This cloth paired with a cleanser just clears out the grime from your pores and I've never had such smooth skin in my life! I just can't praise this product enough. When I don't use it, I notice such a difference. You know how you have those little bumps/heads on your nose and chin and sometimes around the mouth area? I hate them with a passion, when you put foundation on in those areas you can just see them even more, but using this exfoliating cloth is almost like erasing them. I discovered this product before it became a hit with beauty reviewers online as my housemate had been using it for years and I really wish I'd known about it sooner.

The hot cloth cleanser already leaves my skin moisturized, but if my skin is particularly dry as it gets during winter, I'll put some moisturizer on too, I'm not too particular about this, usually I'll just use what I have at the time. My mom always buys me Olay's beauty fluid so I'll usually have this lying around, I do like this moisturizer a lot because it's hydrating but completely non greasy! At first I didn't like it because it didn't feel like it was hydrating my skin due to the lack of greasiness but don't be fooled, it really is nicely hydrating so I always like to have a bottle to hand.

Finally I'll apply benzoyl peroxide on my problem areas or sometimes I'll put it on all the usual places that acne pops up to prevent any nasties. I didn't know about this stuff until I got my 2nd bout of acne in my early 20's as I mentioned earlier. And this is the only thing that zapped them into non-existence. Seriously this is my acne miracle cure. For when I get a particularly nasty spot, like those that don't have a visible head but are just under the skin and red and painful, then I'll use a hot compress on it for about 15 minutes then apply this. I don't beleive in any other acne products because it really does the job. But when I first starting using benzoyl peroxide, it was frying my skin. This was partly my fault, I was so desperate to get rid of my acne that I chose a higher strength product (now i use 2,5%) and I was slathering it on.  And after the first night of doing this, my acne was so visibly reduced so of course this made me slather it on the next night. Within a few days my skin was peeling. Ouch! So if your skin isn't used to this product then take caution. But paired with the hot cloth cleanser, it's a perfect combo because it exfoliates away any peeling but very gently. And anyway the peeling doesn't happen anymore once you've used it for a couple of weeks. I only like to apply this once a day, right before bed, but if I have something desperately needing zapping I'll put some on in the day too after I've washed my face.

That's it for my skincare routine! I don't really like to spend ages and go overboard with lots of products so I try to keep it quick and simple. I'm definitely not one of those people that was born with awesome skin but now I feel like my skin is probably nicer than most people!

But at the momen't I don't use any eye cream, have fine lines starting to creep up and my dark circles in the morning are god awful so I have yet to find my HG eyecream. If anyone has found a really awesome one for dark, dry puffy under eyes I'd love to hear about it.

Update + Look using giveaway items

Thank you so much to everyone who has joined my giveaway and a welcome to the new faces! I've been reading everyone's nice comments although I haven't had time to respond because of work, but tonight I'm finding some time to let everyone know my appreciation. Also I've been trying to think of some makeup looks suitable for the work place! And I thought what better than to try a look using some of my fave products that I included in the giveaway :D. This look was inspired by this gorgeous lady:

That is some serious O-M-G beauty. I know she doesn't always look like that but she's just got such a gorgeous look in this photo! I wasn't trying to make myself look like her at all with my makeup but I wanted to copy the style i.e. a dark eye and nude lip.

 

For this look I used the 3 neutral MUA shades in the giveaway (shade 1, 17, and 19) and the wet and wild mono in cherub. I love the 3 MUA shades and use them quite a lot for a brown smokey look or understated eye makeup like my above attempt. The dark brown MUA eyeshadow is also awesome for eyebrows since it's quite an ashy dark brown and no shimmer! To be honest I don't use the pearly off white shade as eyeshadow at all but as a highlighter for my t zone and above my cheeks.

I used the Pink Mallow lipstick mixed with a teeny bit of concealer on my lips. If you knew me you would know that this is my HG pink lipstick. I've been using it for years and I LOVE it. Seriously can't get enough of this stuff. Natural Collection do quite a wide range of beautiful lipstick shades and I want all of them! Anyway it's bedtime for me, but more on the weekend and I hope you enjoyed this look!